Wednesday

Nov 28, 2018 at 7:36 AMNov 28, 2018 at 8:00 AM

When the time came for the Front Porch Arts Collective – a new black- and brown-led theater company dedicated to furthering racial equality through theater – to mount its first full-scale production, co-founder and Executive Director Maurice Emmanuel Parent knew just where to turn.

“We had conversations with Matt Chapuran, managing director at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, and he brought in Spiro Veloudos, the producing artistic director, and we started talking about shows we could do together,” recalled Parent by telephone recently from his home in Roxbury.

Before long, the nascent collaborators landed on “Breath & Imagination,” a Daniel Beaty play with music, about lyric tenor and composer Roland Hayes (1887–1977), which begins performances Nov. 30 at the Lyric Stage.

“We decided that this was the perfect one, because it’s about a black man who uses uncompromising professionalism to overcome overwhelming racism and achieve artistic and financial success. That’s a story very much in keeping with our company’s mission to use theater to overcome racial barriers and make Boston a more inclusive, welcoming city,” says Parent.

The decision to partner with the Lyric Stage on the first production of its inaugural season – which will also include co-productions of “Black Odyssey” with Cambridge’s Underground Railroad Theatre, and “The Three Musketeers” with Stoneham’s Greater Boston Stage Company – was the right one for a few reasons, according to Parent.

“We began to develop ideas for the Front Porch Arts Collective, and consider a couple of titles we could do, about three years ago. At about the same time, my co-founder and artistic director, Dawn Meredith Simmons, was directing ‘Saturday Night/Sunday Morning’ at the Lyric Stage.

“The Lyric Stage Company is committed to racial diversity and non-traditional casting, and they know their audience very well,” points out Parent. “They also know how to do musicals, which makes ‘Breath & Imagination’ a good fit for them because it explores beautiful music.”

Born in Georgia, Roland Hayes was the son of tenant farmers and spent his early years on the plantation where his mother had once been a slave. As a teenager, Hayes was introduced to classical music when he heard a recording by Enrico Caruso. Hayes would go on to study music at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.

Subsequently relocating to Boston to continue his studies, Hayes made his home in Brookline. As a black man, Hayes had to overcome significant obstacles on his way to a career that saw him give a command performance for Britain’s King George V and Queen Mary, and become the first soloist of color to perform at Symphony Hall in Boston.

Even after earning international acclaim in classical music, Hayes – whose daughter, Afrika Hayes, has served as a piano accompanist at the Boston Conservatory and Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick – never left behind his complicated, loving relationship with his mother, nor his background in spirituals.

When it comes to relationships, the one Parent has with the local theater community has long been productive.

Indeed, the Washington, D.C., native, who earned his BS in business administration from Carnegie Mellon and his MA from the Steinhardt School at New York University, is one of the most in-demand actors on the Boston theater scene today.

In just the past few years, he has appeared in “The Scottsboro Boys” at SpeakEasy Stage Company, “Edward II” for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, where he is a resident-company member, “Merrily We Roll Along” and “Skeleton Crew” at the Huntington, and “Into the Woods” at the Lyric Stage.

A lecturer at the Boston University School of Theatre, a Visiting Artist at the Tufts University Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, and the 2018–2019 Boston College Monan Professor of Theater Arts, Parent is making his professional directorial debut with “Breath & Imagination.”

“I love musicals and I trained in them for many years, so when we met with Spiro and Matt, I put myself forward as a director,” says Parent. “And I got great support from Dawn, Spiro, and Meredith Sandberg-Zakian, who directed me in ‘Skeleton Crew.’”

Parent says he also received encouragement from David Dower, artistic director at ArtsEmerson and director of its 2015 production of “Breath & Imagination,” which was presented at Boston’s Emerson/Paramount Center.

“I think it is a benefit of being an actor that I understand that people need to work, so it didn’t surprise me when so many actors reached out about this project when they heard I was directing. This was my first time having to say no to people. That was difficult, but I offered feedback to those who wanted it,” says Parent.

The director ultimately said yes to a four-member company of actors led by Davron S. Monroe as Hayes, and including Yewande Odetoyinbo as his mother, Angel Mo’, Doug Gerber as Mr. Calhoun and the Frenchman, and Nile Hawver as George V and other characters.

While he often plays leading roles, Parent was content to let someone else take center stage this time around.

“Davron Monroe has an amazing voice. He’s been great in so many shows, including ‘Kiss of the Spiderwoman,’ ‘The Wiz,’ ‘Camelot,’ ‘Company,’ and ‘City of Angels’ at the Lyric, and he’s a superb concert artist, too. Davron is the perfect person to play Roland Hayes,” explains Parent. “I could never do what he does.”